I'd like to explain why I think evolution is real. First of all, I don't need creation scientists to prove that God made the world in 7 twenty-four hour days. I have faith that God created the world, and that's what the Bible requires.

Onto science, I think I should first start with a definition of evolution.

Biological evolution is genetic change in a population from one generation to another. The speed and direction of change is variable with different species lines and at different times. Continuous evolution over many generations can result in the development of new varieties and species. Likewise, failure to evolve in response to environmental changes can, and often does, lead to extinction.

snip

snip

Evidence better explained than I can explain it.

How Do We Know That Evolution Has Occurred?

The evidence for evolution has primarily come from four sources:

1.

the fossil record of change in earlier species

2.

the chemical and anatomical similarities of related life forms

3.

the geographic distribution of related species

4.

the recorded genetic changes in living organisms over many generations

Now, what convinces me the most is medical science. It simply wouldn't work without evolution.

This process of natural selection resulting in evolution can be easily demonstrated over a 24 hour period in a laboratory Petri dish of bacteria living in a nutrient medium. When a lethal dose of antibiotic is added, there will be a mass die-off. However, a few of the bacteria usually are immune and survive. The next generation is mostly immune because they have inherited immunity from the survivors. That is the case with the purple bacteria in the Petri dishes shown below--the bacteria population has evolved.

Now, some people might be able to accept this, but what about Darwin's theory of evolution? We don't come from monkeys, right? Well, the theory doesn't say that. It only says we're related through a common ancester. Sounds hard to believe, but it's hard to deny it when we share 99% of the DNA with apes.

Using such reasoning, it has been estimated that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees (with whom we share 99 percent of our genes) lived five million years ago. Going back a little farther, the Hominidae clade is 13 million years old. If we continue farther back in time, we find that placental mammals are between 60 and 80 million years old and that the oldest four-limbed animal, or tetrapod, lived between 300 and 350 million years ago and the earliest chordates (animals with a notochord) appeared about 990 million years ago. Humans belong to each of these successively broader groups.

Lanie, please point out in the Bible where it says God created the world in 7 24 hour days. I'll wait for your response before I really get into this.

10-10-2012, 01:53 PM

djones520

I'll field this one for shits and giggles.

I'm pretty sure that when God created the universe, he paid no attention at all to the amount of time it took. An omnipresent, omniscient being, I'd imagine time had very little meaning to him.

Now, to the man who wrote the story down, after an unknown number of generations verbally handed the story down (well maybe it's known, I never read the entirety of Genesis), the meaning of day was quite clear. A 24 hour period, or one sunrise to the next. Genesis (and all the other books in the Bible) was written by man, using terms that man knows and relates to. If we are to say that the 7 days is not to refer to a one week period, hence the establishment of Sunday and all that jazz, does not actually refer to a set timeframe, then how is the rest of the story of creation to be taken seriously when it could all just mean something else?

10-10-2012, 02:30 PM

TVDOC

Quote:

Originally Posted by djones520

I'll field this one for shits and giggles.

I'm pretty sure that when God created the universe, he paid no attention at all to the amount of time it took. An omnipresent, omniscient being, I'd imagine time had very little meaning to him.

Now, to the man who wrote the story down, after an unknown number of generations verbally handed the story down (well maybe it's known, I never read the entirety of Genesis), the meaning of day was quite clear. A 24 hour period, or one sunrise to the next. Genesis (and all the other books in the Bible) was written by man, using terms that man knows and relates to. If we are to say that the 7 days is not to refer to a one week period, hence the establishment of Sunday and all that jazz, does not actually refer to a set timeframe, then how is the rest of the story of creation to be taken seriously when it could all just mean something else?

Since she brought science into this discussion, I'll comment that Einstein proved that time is an abstract concept, and is only "linear" as it appears to humans in this world

Current quantum theory proposes that all "time" coexists simultaneously, and is only differentiated by dimensional barriers. Therefore to G*d, "time" has no relationship to how either we or the early Hebrews perceived it. In a strictly literal interpretation of the first few verses of Genesis (from the Hebrew), a "day" was established prior to creation of the earth, and using basic logic, since there was no planetary object or motion to establish the parameters of that "day", it could, for all practical purposes, be several million years as we measure it. It was merely recorded in the early Hebrew texts in the only manner that it could be understood at the time.

Frankly, in all my years of scientific study, I've never found a conflict between what is stated in Scripture and what "evolution" is theorized to mean, once you get past the definition of what "time" actually is........it's not a continuum.......for want of a more descriptive word, time is a "place/position/location".

doc

10-10-2012, 02:31 PM

m00

Quote:

Originally Posted by djones520

If we are to say that the 7 days is not to refer to a one week period, hence the establishment of Sunday and all that jazz, does not actually refer to a set timeframe, then how is the rest of the story of creation to be taken seriously when it could all just mean something else?

I'll give you a hint. Genesis wasn't written in English. Do you know which Hebrew word used?